The present invention relates to a capacitive touch sensor for detecting proximity and location of a body, more especially to a one- or two-dimensional capacitive sensor.
There are various forms of touch sensitive controls which use a capacitive sensor to sense the presence of a body such as a user's finger. A form of touch sensitive control is disclosed in WO-00/44018. In this example a pair of electrodes are provided which act as a key so that the presence of a body such as a user's finger is detected as a result of a change in an amount of charge which is transferred between the two electrodes. With this arrangement, one of the electrodes (labeled X) is driven with a drive circuit and the other of the pair of electrodes (labeled Y) is connected to a charge measurement circuit which detects an amount of charge present on the Y plate when driven by the X plate. As disclosed in WO-00/44018 several pairs of electrodes can be arranged to form a matrix of sensing areas which can provide an efficient implementation of a touch sensitive two-dimensional position sensor. Such two dimensional capacitive transducing (2DCT) sensors are typically used with devices which include touch sensitive screens or touch sensitive keyboards/keypads which are used in, for example, consumer electronic devices and domestic appliances.
Devices employing 2DCT sensors have become increasingly popular and common not only in conjunction with personal computers but also in all manner of other appliances such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), point of sale (POS) terminals, electronic information and ticketing kiosks, kitchen appliances and the like. 2DCT sensors are frequently preferred to mechanical switches for a number of reasons. For example, 2DCT sensors require no moving parts and so are less prone to wear than their mechanical counterparts. 2DCT sensors can also be made in relatively small sizes so that correspondingly small, and tightly packed keypad arrays can be provided. Furthermore, 2DCT sensors can be provided beneath an environmentally sealed outer surface/cover panel. This makes their use in wet environments or where there is a danger of dirt or fluids entering a device being controlled attractive. In addition, manufactures often prefer to employ interfaces based on 2DCT sensors in their products because such interfaces are often considered by consumers to be more aesthetically pleasing than conventional mechanical input mechanisms (e.g. push-buttons).
Other devices which may incorporate 2DCT sensors include pen-input tablets and encoders used in machinery for feedback control purposes, for example 2DCT sensors are capable of reporting at least a 2-dimensional coordinate, Cartesian or otherwise, related to the location of an object or human body part by means of a capacitance sensing mechanism.
As the size of touch sensor arrays increases, it takes longer and longer to acquire a signal value from each of the sensing nodes in the sensor array, which is not desirable. Moreover, it is usually a requirement that the signal acquisition and low level signal processing is carried out with a microcontroller, and it is not desirable to increase the specification of the microcontroller to reduce the data acquisition time.